LulzSec hacks The Sun, publishes fake story about Murdoch’s death

The infamous hacker group LulzSec made a comeback on Monday by hacking the website of the British tabloid The Sun, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, and redirecting the frontpage to a fake story about Murdoch being found dead.

The story read: “Rupert Murdoch, the controversial media mogul, has reportedly been found dead in his garden, police announce. Murdoch, aged 80, has said to have ingested a large quantity of palladium before stumbling into his famous topiary garden late last night, passing out in the early hours of the morning.”

The fake story was quickly taken down, but visitors to the site were redirected to LulzSec’s Twitter feed.

The group also hacked the website of Murdoch’s United Kingdom newspaper publishing division, News International.

LulzSec took responsibility on their Twitter account for defacing The Sun‘s website, adding that “this is only the beginning.”

“Arrest us,” they said. “We dare you. We are the unstoppable hacking generation and you are a wasted old sack of shit, Murdoch. ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWER!”

LulzSec has also claimed responsibility for the Sony hack that compromised millions of peoples’ personal information, as well as several government hacks. The group burst onto the public radar with a well-publicized hack of PBS NewsHour’s website in early June.

The group quickly became an Internet sensation, accumulating more than a quarter of a million Twitter followers and numerous LulzSec-inspired songs on YouTube. They claimed to have disbanded on June 26 after releasing internal AOL and AT&T documents.

In June, LulzSec described The Sun as “the shittest UK publication in existence,” adding, “if you don’t kick, hit or throw some kind of sports-related object at least thirty-five times a week, you are a filthy recluse to The Sun.”

Murdoch became embroiled in a phone hacking scandal thanks to his U.K. newspaper News of the World, which closed down after an investigation revealed it had participated in the phone hacking of celebrities, British politicians, the families of terrorist attack victims, dead soldiers and others.

Rupert and James Murdoch are both scheduled to give testimony before Parliament on Tuesday. So far, 10 people have been arrested in connection to the News International phone hacking scandals.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice have launched their own investigations into whether News Corp. participated in the hacking of 9/11 victims or U.S. officials.

About the Author

Eric W. Dolan has served as an editor for Raw Story since August 2010,
and is based out of Sacramento, California. He grew up in the suburbs
of Chicago and received a Bachelor of Science from Bradley University.
Eric is also the publisher and editor of the psychology news website PsyPost. You can follow him on
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